Ralph Lauren Women’s Flagship Store

888 Madison Avenue, New York, NY

Project Details

Completed 2010
22,000 sf

Architects
Weddle Gilmore Architects
HS2 Architecture

The Ralph Lauren Women’s Flagship Store – 888 Madison, located on the southwest corner of 72nd Street within Manhattan’s Upper East Side Historic District, is a new four-story building that fits in easily with the neighborhood’s turn-of-the-century mansions and townhouses. Constructed using the existing foundations of its unprepossessing 1950’s predecessor, which was razed, the building’s design called for demolishing all but the façade of an adjacent townhouse to the west of the site and assimilating it into the new structure to create one large, upscale retail space.

Long, clear spans, high ceilings, and few columns help achieve the spacious Beaux-Arts design of the interior: a prominent element of which is the grand marble staircase that rises through all four floors. The exterior features a detailed, ornate Indiana limestone façade with large, cantilevered cornices and arched entryways. A green roof was added to the project’s design during construction.

Located opposite the 1898 Rhinelander Mansion, which houses the brand’s Men’s Flagship Store, the new steel-frame and precast hollow core concrete plank structure sits partially on existing foundations from the original two-story building that had been located on the site, and partially on new foundations to rock. The new building interfaces with the six-story historic townhouse to the west, whose historic, landmark-designated façade has been retained.